List of years in film

Template:Short description Template:Yearsinfilm This page indexes the individual year in film pages. Each year is annotated with its significant events.

• 1800s, 1900s, 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, 1940s
• 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s
• 2000s, 2010s, 2020s

1826–1899

• 1826 – View from the Window at Le Gras, Nicéphore Niépce takes the oldest known extant photograph.
• 1833 – Since 1833 onwards, 'animated films' or rather animated effects began to be made with the use of choreutoscopes, phénakisticopes, zoetropes, and praxinoscopes.
• 1865 – Revolving, self-portrait by French photographer Nadar. Around 1865 he produced this series of self-portraits consisting of 12 frames showing different angles of him sitting still in a chair. Except for a smile in 1 frame, not even a fold in his jacket or a single hair seems to change between the different angles. The portrait could be regarded as a predecessor to the chronophotography which Marey and Muybridge started to experiment with more than 10 years later. As the sequence revolves around space rather than time it is even more related to the bullet-time effect popularized by The Matrix about 135 years later. There is no clue if more than one camera was used in the shoot, but it is certainly well-executed.
• 1874 – Passage de Vénus, first precedent of a film; On December 9, 1874, French astronomer Pierre Janssen and Brazilian engineer Francisco Antônio de Almeida using Janssen's 'photographic revolver' photograph the transit of the planet Venus across the Sun. They were purportedly taken in Japan. It is the oldest film on IMDb.

Before Muybridge's 1878 work, photo sequences were not recorded in real-time because light-sensitive emulsions needed a long exposure time. The sequences were basically made as time-lapse recordings. It is possible that people at the time actually viewed such photographs come to life with a phénakisticope or zoetrope (this certainly happened with Muybridge's work).

• 1878 –
  • The Horse in Motion; British photographer Eadweard Muybridge took a series of "automatic electro-photographs" depicting the movement of a horse. He shot the photographs in June 1878. An additional card reprinted the single image of the horse "Occident" trotting at high speed, which had previously been published by Muybridge in 1877. The most famous of these electro-photographs is "Sallie Gardner" taken on June 19, 1878. Railroad tycoon Leland Stanford hired Muybridge to settle the questions of whether a galloping horse ever has all four of its feet off the ground. Muybridge's photos showed the horse with all four feet off the ground. He went on a lecture tour showing his photographs on a moving-image device he called the zoopraxiscope.
  • Le singe musicien, first animated movie using the praxinoscope
• 1885 – American inventors George Eastman and Hannibal Goodwin each invented a sensitized celluloid base roll photographic film to replace the glass plates then in use. L'homme Machine, was directed by French scientist Étienne-Jules Marey; it is the oldest black and white animated known film.
• 1886 – Louis Le Prince was granted an American dual-patent for a 16-lens device which combines a motion picture camera with a projector.
• 1887 – Man Walking Around a Corner, directed by French inventor Louis Le Prince; It is the oldest known film. Although according to David Wilkinson's 2015 documentary The First Film it is not film, but a series of photographs, 16 in all, each taken from one of the lens from Le Prince's camera. Pictures from the film were sent in a letter dated August 18, 1887 to his wife. Le Prince later developed the one lens camera and on October 14, 1888 he finally made the world's first moving image, Roundhay Garden Scene.
• 1888 – Roundhay Garden Scene, the earliest surviving film by French inventor Louis Le Prince, is shot in Leeds, West Yorkshire in England with a groundbreaking 20 frames per second. Other short films made at the same time were Accordion Player and Traffic Crossing Leeds Bridge.
• 1889 – Eastman Kodak is the first company to begin commercial production of film on a flexible transparent base, celluloid.
• 1891 – Dickson Greeting; Men Boxing; Newark Athlete
• 1892 – Le Clown et ses chiens; Pauvre Pierrot; Un bon bock, first projected animated films released by Émile Reynaud
• 1893 – Blacksmiths, the first film shown publicly on the Kinetoscope, a system given to Edison; Thomas Edison created "America's First Film Studio", Black Maria.
• 1894 –
  • Carmencita was made. According to film historian Charles Musser the first woman to appear in front of an Edison motion picture camera was in the film. She may have been the first woman to appear in a motion picture in the United States. It was directed and produced by William K.L. Dickson, who was the Scottish inventor credited with the invention of the motion picture camera under the employ of Edison.<ref name="congress">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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• • The Dickson Experimental Sound Film made by William Dickson in late 1894 or early 1895 is the first known film with live-recorded sound and appears to be the first motion picture made for the Kinetophone, the proto-sound-film system developed by Dickson and Edison.
• 1895 – In Paris on December 28, 1895, the Lumière brothers screen ten films at the Salon Indien du Grand Café in Paris making the first commercial public screening ever made, marked traditionally as the birth date of the film. Gaumont, the oldest ever film studio, was founded by inventor Léon Gaumont.
• 1896 – L'Arrivée d'un train en gare de La Ciotat, one of the six more short films released by the Lumière brothers; Pathé-Frères is founded; Le Manoir du diable (The Haunted Castle) is a French short silent film directed by Georges Méliès which depicts a pantomimed sketch in the style of a theatrical comic fantasy.
• 1897 – Vitagraph is founded in New York City
• 1898 –The Astronomer's Dream; The Cavalier's Dream; Photographing a Ghost; Santa Claus
• 1898 – Shinin No Sosei and Bake Jizo were made by Ejiro Hatta, some of the first films in Japan which were ghost stories.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref> Salvador Toscano created the film, "Don Juan Tenorio", which is considered one of the first films in Mexico and perhaps the first fictional film in Mexico, as South America as a continent focuses on making documentaries in its early film history.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

• 1898 – Hiralal Sen was inspired and filmed the "Flower of Persia" play.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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• 1899 – The Dreyfus Affair and Cendrillon (first screen adaptation of the traditional fairy tale Cinderella) was released by Georges Méliès; earliest known use of a color motion picture film footage by Edward Raymond Turner<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

1900–1909

• 1900 – Sherlock Holmes Baffled, Joan of Arc
• 1901 – Blue Beard, Star Theatre, Stop Thief!, Scrooge, or, Marley's Ghost
• 1902 – A Trip to the Moon, The Coronation of Edward VII, The Little Match Seller
• 1903 – The Great Train Robbery, The Infernal Cauldron, Life of an American Fireman,The Kingdom of the Fairies
• 1904 – The Impossible Voyage; Titanus was founded
• 1905 – Adventures of Sherlock Holmes; or, Held for Ransom
• 1906 – The Story of the Kelly Gang, The Merry Frolics of Satan, The '?' Motorist, Dream of a Rarebit Fiend, Humorous Phases of Funny Faces; Nordisk Film was founded
• 1907 – That Fatal Sneeze, Ben-Hur, The Eclipse, or the Courtship of the Sun and Moon, L'Enfant prodigue
• 1908 – Fantasmagorie, The Taming of the Shrew, The Thieving Hand, The Assassination of the Duke of Guise, The Adventures of Dollie; Pathé News invented the newsreel
• 1909 – The Country Doctor, A Corner in Wheat, Princess Nicotine; or, The Smoke Fairy, Les Misérables; 35 mm film becomes a filmmaking standard across the world; first public screening of Kinemacolor<ref name=":2">Template:Cite book</ref>

1910–1919

• 1910 – Frankenstein, In Old California, In the Border States, Jean the Match-Maker, White Fawn's Devotion
• 1911 – L'Inferno, Baron Munchausen's Dream, Defence of Sevastopol, The Lonedale Operator
• 1912 – The Cameraman's Revenge, Falling Leaves, Independenţa României, The Musketeers of Pig Alley, Richard III; Universal Pictures and Paramount Pictures, Hollywood's two oldest major film studios, were founded; the British Board of Film Classification was established
• 1913 – The Bangville Police, Fantômas, Barney Oldfield's Race for a Life, Raja Harishchandra, The Student Of Prague; invention of the film trailer
• 1914 – The Perils of Pauline, Tillie's Punctured Romance, Judith of Bethulia, Gertie the Dinosaur
• 1915 – The Birth of a Nation, The Tramp, Les Vampires, The Cheat
• 1916 – Intolerance, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Judex; invention of Technicolor
• 1917 – Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, A Man There Was, The Immigrant
• 1918 – The Outlaw and His Wife, Stella Maris, Mickey, Shifting Sands, Shoulder Arms
• 1919 – Blind Husbands, Broken Blossoms, True Heart Susie, Dalagang Bukid, Male and Female, Wagon Tracks; United Artists was founded

1920–1929

• 1920 – The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Way Down East, The Penalty, The Mark of Zorro, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Golem: How He Came into the World, Within Our Gates
• 1921 – The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, The Kid, The Phantom Carriage, Fool's Paradise, The Sheik, The Mechanical Man, Destiny, The Three Musketeers
• 1922 – Nosferatu, Foolish Wives, The Little Rascals, Blood and Sand, Nanook of the North, Douglas Fairbanks in Robin Hood, Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Mabuse the Gambler; the Motion Picture Association of America was established
• 1923 – Safety Last!, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Ten Commandments; Warner Bros. Pictures and Walt Disney Pictures were founded; 16 mm film was introduced
• 1924 – The Thief of Bagdad, Greed, The Hands Of Orlac, Sherlock Jr., The Last Laugh, He Who Gets Slapped, Die Nibelungen; Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Columbia Pictures were founded
• 1925 – The Gold Rush, The Battleship Potemkin, The Big Parade, The Phantom of the Opera, Ben-Hur, The Lost World, The Pleasure Garden
• 1926 – The General, Don Juan, The Black Pirate, Faust
• 1927 – The Jazz Singer, Metropolis, Wings, Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, Napoléon, The King of Kings
• 1928 – The Man Who Laughs, Mickey Mouse, Lights of New York, The Circus, The Singing Fool, In Old Arizona; RKO Pictures was founded
• 1929 – Blackmail, Bosko, Un Chien Andalou, Pandora's Box, Man with a Movie Camera, The Broadway Melody, Disraeli, The Virginian; 1st Academy Awards

1930–1939

• 1930 – Looney Tunes, King of Jazz, All Quiet on the Western Front, Earth, Journey's End, The Blue Angel, The Bat Whispers, Murder!, Animal Crackers, Hell's Angels, The Big House, The Big Trail
• 1931 – Frankenstein, Dracula, The Champ, The Public Enemy, Little Caesar, Cimarron, M, City Lights, The Front Page, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
• 1932 – Shanghai Express, Scarface, Tarzan the Ape Man, The Mummy, Freaks, The Music Box, Trouble in Paradise, The Sign of the Cross, Grand Hotel; 8mm film was introduced
• 1933 – King Kong, Gold Diggers of 1933, The Invisible Man, 42nd Street, Duck Soup, Sons of the Desert, She Done Him Wrong
• 1934 – L'Atalante, It Happened One Night, The Thin Man, Cleopatra, The Goddess, Imitation of Life, Manhattan Melodrama, The Black Cat, Bright Eyes
• 1935 – A Night at the Opera, Bride of Frankenstein, The 39 Steps, Top Hat, Mutiny on the Bounty; 20th Century Fox and The Rank Organisation was founded
• 1936 – Modern Times, Swing Time, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, Flash Gordon, My Man Godfrey, The Great Ziegfeld, Come and Get It, Romeo and Juliet, Camille
• 1937 – Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, The Life of Émile Zola, La Grande Illusion, Pépé le Moko, The Prisoner of Zenda, Lost Horizon
• 1938 – Bringing Up Baby, The Adventures of Robin Hood, Alexander Nevsky, Jezebel, A Christmas Carol, Boys Town, Angels with Dirty Faces
• 1939 – Gone with the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, The Rules of the Game, Sherlock Holmes, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Of Mice and Men, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Stagecoach

1940–1949

• 1940 – The Grapes of Wrath, The Philadelphia Story, The Shop Around the Corner, Foreign Correspondent, The Great Dictator, Christmas in July, Brother Orchid, Ahí está el detalle, All This and Heaven Too, Rebecca, The Letter, His Girl Friday, The Great McGinty, Fantasia, They Drive by Night
• 1941 – Citizen Kane, Sergeant York, Ball of Fire, How Green Was My Valley, The Maltese Falcon, Sullivan's Travels, 49th Parallel, The Black Cat, Blossoms in the Dust, High Sierra, The Shanghai Gesture, Suspicion, The Wolf Man, Here Comes Mr. Jordan, The Lady Eve, Meet John Doe
• 1942 – Casablanca, The Magnificent Ambersons, To Be or Not to Be, The Pride of the Yankees, All Through the Night, I Married a Witch, Bambi, The Palm Beach Story, Kings Row, Cat People, Woman of the Year, Yankee Doodle Dandy, Mrs. Miniver
• 1943 – The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, Day of Wrath, Meshes of the Afternoon, The Human Comedy, Shadow of a Doubt, Angels of the Streets, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ossessione, Heaven Can Wait, María Candelaria, The Ox-Bow Incident, Phantom of the Opera, The Song of Bernadette, Stormy Weather, Ukraine in Flames, Journey into Fear, Jane Eyre, Madame Curie
• 1944 – Double Indemnity, Gaslight, The Children Are Watching Us, To Have And Have Not, Going My Way, Henry V, Arsenic and Old Lace, A Canterbury Tale, Casanova Brown, Hail the Conquering Hero, House of Frankenstein, Meet Me in St. Louis, Mr. Skeffington, Mrs. Parkington, National Velvet, Since You Went Away
• 1945 – Rome, Open City, Children of Paradise, The Lost Weekend, The Bells of St. Mary's, Brief Encounter, Les dames du Bois de Boulogne, Love Letters, Mildred Pierce, The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Seventh Veil, Spellbound, Anchors Aweigh, And Then There Were None, Blithe Spirit, Christmas in Connecticut, Fallen Angel, I Know Where I'm Going!, Ivan the Terrible, Part One
• 1946 – The Best Years of Our Lives, The Big Sleep, Beauty and the Beast, Notorious, It's a Wonderful Life, My Darling Clementine, A Matter of Life and Death, A Night in Casablanca, Paisan, The Postman Always Rings Twice, The Razor's Edge, Shoeshine, The Spiral Staircase, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, The Stranger, The Yearling, The Blue Dahlia, Duel in the Sun, Gilda, Great Expectations, The Killers
• 1947 – Black Narcissus, Out of the Past, Monsieur Verdoux, Dark Passage, The Pearl, Dead Reckoning, Gentleman's Agreement, The Spring River Flows East, Miracle on 34th Street, Mourning Becomes Electra, Odd Man Out, The Bishop's Wife, Body and Soul, Boomerang, Kiss of Death, The Lady from Shanghai, Brute Force, Crossfire, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir
• 1948 – Bicycle Thieves, The Red Shoes, Spring in a Small Town, Letter from an Unknown Woman, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The Snake Pit, Sorry, Wrong Number, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, Blood on the Moon, Drunken Angel, Fort Apache, Germany Year Zero, Johnny Belinda, Key Largo, Louisiana Story, Macbeth, Red River, Rope, The Search, Hamlet, He Walked by Night, I Remember Mama
• 1949 – The Third Man, Late Spring, White Heat, All the King's Men, Kind Hearts and Coronets, A Letter to Three Wives, Little Women, On the Town, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, Stray Dog, Twelve O'Clock High, Adam's Rib, Aventurera, Criss Cross, The Heiress

1950–1959

• 1950 – Rashomon, Sunset Boulevard, Los Olvidados, In a Lonely Place, All About Eve, Winchester '73, The Gunfighter, Harvey, The Asphalt Jungle, Cinderella, Father of the Bride, The Flowers of St. Francis, Orphée, La Ronde, Stromboli
• 1951 – Diary of a Country Priest, A Streetcar Named Desire, The African Queen, A Place in the Sun, Ace in the Hole, An American in Paris, Early Summer, The Lavender Hill Mob, The River, Strangers on a Train,The Tales of Hoffmann, The Browning Version, Death of a Salesman, Detective Story
• 1952 – Singin' in the Rain, Ikiru, Umberto D., The Quiet Man, High Noon, Pat and Mike, Viva Zapata!, Limelight, Mexican Bus Ride, 5 Fingers, The Bad and the Beautiful, Children of Hiroshima, Come Back, Little Sheba, Europa '51, The Life of Oharu, Othello
• 1953 – Tokyo Story, Ugetsu, The Wages of Fear, From Here to Eternity, Roman Holiday, I Vitelloni, Shane, The Earrings of Madame de..., Sawdust and Tinsel, Stalag 17, Monsieur Hulot's Holiday
• 1954 – Sansho the Bailiff, On the Waterfront, Seven Samurai, La strada, Rear Window, The Caine Mutiny, Journey to Italy, Magnificent Obsession, River of No Return, Senso, Johnny Guitar, A Star Is Born, The Crucified Lovers, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Désirée, Sabrina, Salt of the Earth, Vera Cruz
• 1955 – East of Eden, The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz, Ordet, Pather Panchali, The Night of the Hunter, Rebel Without a Cause, The Man with the Golden Arm, Lady and the Tramp, All That Heaven Allows, Les Diaboliques, Escuela de vagabundos, Guys and Dolls, Kiss Me Deadly, Oklahoma!, Richard III, Rififi, The Rose Tattoo, To Catch a Thief
• 1956 – The Searchers, A Man Escaped, Giant, The Burmese Harp, Written on the Wind, The Ten Commandments, The Man Who Knew Too Much, Early Spring, The King and I, The Red Balloon, Night And Fog, Friendly Persuasion, Aparajito, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Killing, Anastasia
• 1957 – The Seventh Seal, 12 Angry Men, Paths of Glory, The Cranes Are Flying, Wild Strawberries, The Bridge on the River Kwai, Nights of Cabiria, Throne of Blood, Sweet Smell of Success, Funny Face, Sayonara, Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison, Peyton Place, Raintree County
• 1958 – Vertigo, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Equinox Flower, Touch of Evil, The Hidden Fortress, The Long, Hot Summer, Elevator to the Gallows, Jalsaghar, Mon Oncle, Ashes and Diamonds, The Inn of the Sixth Happiness, The Brothers Karamazov, The Ballad of Narayama, The Magician, The Big Country, The Defiant Ones, Andy Hardy Comes Home, Gigi, Ivan the Terrible, Part Two, Lonelyhearts
• 1959 – The 400 Blows, Floating Weeds, Some Like It Hot, Hiroshima Mon Amour, North by Northwest, Ballad of a Soldier, Anatomy of a Murder, Rio Bravo, The Diary of Anne Frank, Pickpocket, Suddenly, Last Summer, Ben-Hur, The World of Apu, Nazarín, The Nun's Story, Pillow Talk, Imitation of Life

1960–1969

• 1960 – La Dolce Vita, Psycho, The Apartment, Breathless, Rocco and His Brothers, Inherit the Wind, L'Avventura, Peeping Tom, The Bad Sleep Well, Elmer Gantry, Two Women, Purple Noon, Spartacus, The Virgin Spring, Wild River, BUtterfield 8, Eyes Without a Face
• 1961 – Last Year at Marienbad, La Notte, Viridiana, Judgment at Nuremberg, Yojimbo, The Hustler, The Innocents, Splendor in the Grass, Breakfast at Tiffany's, West Side Story, Through a Glass Darkly, A Woman Is a Woman, Victim, The End of Summer, The Misfits, One, Two, Three, Divorce Italian Style, A Taste of Honey
• 1962 – Lawrence of Arabia, Jules and Jim, Vivre sa vie, To Kill a Mockingbird, L'Eclisse, Harakiri, Days of Wine and Roses, The Exterminating Angel, The Trial, Cape Fear, La Jetée, An Autumn Afternoon, The Manchurian Candidate, Sweet Bird of Youth, Ivan's Childhood, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
• 1963 – 8½, The Leopard, Hud, The Great Escape, The Birds, Winter Light, Charade, High and Low, Contempt, It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, Muriel, Irma la Douce, The Haunting, Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow, Cleopatra
• 1964 – Dr. Strangelove, Zorba the Greek, Charulata, Mary Poppins, Red Desert, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, The Gospel According to St. Matthew, Woman in the Dunes, I Am Cuba, The Americanization of Emily, Gertrud, Séance on a Wet Afternoon, Band of Outsiders, Hamlet, A Hard Day's Night, Diary of a Chambermaid, Before the Revolution, Kiss Me, Stupid, My Fair Lady, Marnie, A Fistful of Dollars, The Train, The Pawnbroker, Marriage Italian Style
• 1965 – The Sound of Music, Red Beard, Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, The Shop on Main Street, Pierrot le Fou, Doctor Zhivago, Alphaville, Repulsion, Ship of Fools, Juliet of the Spirits, Le Bonheur, For a Few Dollars More, The Cincinnati Kid, The Sons of Katie Elder, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold
• 1966 – Au hasard Balthazar, The Battle of Algiers, Persona, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Daisies, The Round-Up, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Andrei Rublev, Chimes at Midnight, Masculine-Feminine, The Chase, A Man for All Seasons, Born Free, Winnie the Pooh, Seconds, Fantastic Voyage, Blowup, Black Girl, El Dorado
• 1967 – Bonnie and Clyde, Belle de jour, Mouchette, The Graduate, War and Peace, Le samouraï, Marketa Lazarová, Playtime, In Cold Blood, In the Heat of the Night, Divorce American Style, Two for the Road, The Red and the White, Point Blank
• 1968 – 2001: A Space Odyssey, Once Upon a Time in the West, Hour of the Wolf, The Lion in Winter, La hora de los hornos (The Hour of the Furnaces), Night of the Living Dead, Memorias del Subdesarrollo (Memories of Underdevelopment), if...., Planet of the Apes, Faces
• 1969 – Z, Army of Shadows, The Color of Pomegranates, The Wild Bunch, Midnight Cowboy, They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, Olimpiada en México, My Night at Maud's, True Grit, The Brothers Karamazov

1970–1979

• 1970 – Love Story, The Conformist, Performance, Patton, M*A*S*H, Woodstock, Tora! Tora! Tora!, Five Easy Pieces, Airport, Let It Be, first IMAX films
• 1971 – The French Connection, A Clockwork Orange, Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, Dirty Harry, Get Carter, The Last Picture Show, Fiddler on the Roof, Harold and Maude, Straw Dogs
• 1972 – The Godfather, Aguirre, the Wrath of God, The Poseidon Adventure, Cries and Whispers, Those People of the Nile, Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie, Solaris, Last Tango in Paris, Cabaret, Napoleon and Samantha, Deep Throat, What's Up, Doc?, Sounder
• 1973 – The Exorcist, Enter the Dragon, Amarcord, The Sting, American Graffiti, Paper Moon, Mean Streets, The Wicker Man, Distant Thunder, Day for Night, Papillon
• 1974 – A Woman Under the Influence, Lenny, The Godfather Part II, Chinatown, Ali: Fear Eats the Soul, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Phantom of the Paradise, Young Frankenstein, Blazing Saddles, Benji, The Conversation, Black Christmas, The Towering Inferno
• 1975 – Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, Mirror, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Dog Day Afternoon, Barry Lyndon, Jaws, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, The Passenger, Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom, Nashville
• 1976 – Taxi Driver, The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, Rocky, Network, Carrie, All the President's Men, In the Realm of the Senses, 1900, Logan's Run
• 1977 – Star Wars, Annie Hall, Opening Night, Saturday Night Fever, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, A Bridge Too Far, Eraserhead, Providence, Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure
• 1978 – Halloween, The Deer Hunter, Dawn of the Dead, Superman, Grease, Midnight Express, Days of Heaven, Up in Smoke, National Lampoon's Animal House
• 1979 – Stalker, Apocalypse Now, Alien, Mad Max, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Kramer vs. Kramer, Monty Python's Life of Brian, Manhattan, The Muppet Movie

1980–1989

• 1980 – The Shining, Raging Bull, Airplane!, Caddyshack, Ordinary People, Kagemusha, Friday the 13th, The Blues Brothers, The Elephant Man, Private Benjamin
• 1981 – Raiders of the Lost Ark , Chariots of Fire, Reds, The Evil Dead, On Golden Pond, The Great Muppet Caper, Pennies from Heaven, Das Boot, Scanners, Time Bandits, Clash of the Titans, Escape from New York, An American Werewolf in London
• 1982 – Blade Runner, Poltergeist, The Thing, Tron, Sophie's Choice, Tootsie, The Secret of NIMH, Fanny and Alexander, Fitzcarraldo, Gandhi, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, First Blood, 48 Hrs., The Dark Crystal, An Officer and a Gentleman
• 1983 – Michael Jackson's Thriller, Terms of Endearment, Risky Business, Sans Soleil, L'Argent, The King of Comedy, The Right Stuff, Strange Brew, National Lampoon's Vacation, Scarface, Nostalghia, Trading Places, A Christmas Story
• 1984 – This Is Spinal Tap, Amadeus, The Terminator, Ghostbusters, The Karate Kid, Once Upon a Time in America, Paris, Texas, Stop Making Sense, Gremlins, Footloose, Beverly Hills Cop, The Muppets Take Manhattan, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, A Nightmare on Elm Street, The NeverEnding Story
• 1985 – Back to the Future, The Breakfast Club, Out of Africa, Sesame Street Presents: Follow That Bird, The Color Purple, Brazil, Shoah, Ran, Come and See, The Goonies, Pee-wee's Big Adventure, A Room with a View
• 1986 – Blue Velvet, The Sacrifice, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Aliens, Platoon, Hannah and Her Sisters, Top Gun, Stand By Me, Crocodile Dundee, Short Circuit, The Fly, Labyrinth
• 1987 – Fatal Attraction, The Untouchables, The Princess Bride, Dirty Dancing, Full Metal Jacket, Wings of Desire, The Dead, RoboCop, Evil Dead II, The Last Emperor, Raising Arizona, Wall Street, The Lost Boys, Hellraiser, Predator, Moonstruck, Hope and Glory, Planes, Trains and Automobiles, Lethal Weapon, Au revoir les enfants, Good Morning, Vietnam, Broadcast News
• 1988 – Rain Man, Cinema Paradiso, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Die Hard, Beetlejuice, My Neighbor Totoro, Akira, The Accused, Big, Days of Terror, The Bear, The Last Temptation of Christ, Dead Ringers, Child's Play, The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!, A Fish Called Wanda
• 1989 – Do the Right Thing, Driving Miss Daisy, Batman, The Abyss, When Harry Met Sally..., The Little Mermaid, Say Anything..., Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, Crimes and Misdemeanors, Dead Poets Society, Field of Dreams, Born on the Fourth of July; first publication of Empire

1990-1999

• 1990 – Home Alone, Ghost, Goodfellas, Close-Up, Dances with Wolves, Edward Scissorhands, Wild at Heart, Total Recall, Misery, Pretty Woman, Journey of Hope, The Hunt for Red October
• 1991 – The Silence of the Lambs, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Beauty and the Beast, JFK, Boyz n the Hood, Thelma & Louise, A Brighter Summer Day, Barton Fink, The Addams Family
• 1992 – Unforgiven,Cool World, Reservoir Dogs, Basic Instinct, Aladdin, The Muppet Christmas Carol, A Few Good Men, The Player, The Crying Game, Wayne's World, Indochine, Candyman, A League of Their Own
• 1993 – Jurassic Park, Schindler's List, The Piano, Groundhog Day, In the Name of the Father, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Philadelphia, Three Colours trilogy, True Romance, Dazed and Confused
• 1994 – Forrest Gump, Pulp Fiction, The Shawshank Redemption, The Lion King, Legends of the Fall, Clerks, Sátántangó, Interview with the Vampire, Speed, True Lies, Léon: The Professional, Hoop Dreams, Il Postino: The Postman, The Mask, Through the Olive Trees, Four Weddings and a Funeral
• 1995 – Braveheart, Se7en, Apollo 13, Toy Story, The Usual Suspects, Heat, 12 Monkeys, Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, Clueless, Babe, Leaving Las Vegas, Casino, the Before trilogy, Sense and Sensibility
• 1996 – Fargo, Flirting with Disaster, Trainspotting, Muppet Treasure Island, The English Patient, Independence Day, Twister, Jerry Maguire, Mission: Impossible, Scream, That Thing You Do!, Shine, Shall We Dance?; first DVDs were released
• 1997 – Titanic, Life is Beautiful, Good Will Hunting, Boogie Nights, Jackie Brown, Hercules, L.A. Confidential, Taste of Cherry, Gattaca, Hana-bi, Men in Black, Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, The Full Monty, Princess Mononoke, Perfect Blue, The Fifth Element, I Know What You Did Last Summer
• 1998 – Saving Private Ryan, Barney's Great Adventure, American History X, The Thin Red Line, A Bug's Life, Shakespeare in Love, The Big Lebowski, Buffalo '66, Bulworth, The Truman Show, The Wedding Singer, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Run Lola Run, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, There's Something About Mary
• 1999 – American Beauty, The Sixth Sense, The Matrix, Fight Club, The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland, Magnolia, Notting Hill, The Blair Witch Project, The Iron Giant, The Green Mile, Toy Story 2, Muppets from Space, Election, Boys Don't Cry, Beau Travail, Being John Malkovich

2000–2009

• 2000 – Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, In the Mood for Love, Gladiator, Cast Away, Platform, Memento, Erin Brockovich, Billy Elliot, Almost Famous, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, High Fidelity, Battle Royale, X-Men, Unbreakable, American Psycho, Before Night Falls, Requiem for a Dream; The first digital cinema in Europe by Phillippe Binant
• 2001 – The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Shrek, A Beautiful Mind, The Royal Tenenbaums, Spirited Away, Mulholland Drive, Donnie Darko, The Fast & the Furious, Monsters, Inc., Moulin Rouge!, Zoolander, Legally Blonde, Training Day, Black Hawk Down, Monster's Ball, Amélie, Bridget Jones's Diary
• 2002 – City of God, Talk to Her, Minority Report, Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie, The Pianist, Russian Ark, Spider-Man, Chicago, 8 Mile, The Hours, The Quiet American, Gangs of New York, Bowling for Columbine, About a Boy, Frida, Lilo & Stitch, 28 Days Later, Bend It Like Beckham, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Punch-Drunk Love, Ice Age The Ring, Better Luck Tomorrow, Catch Me If You Can, Adaptation
• 2003 – Oldboy, Kill Bill, Lost in Translation, Elephant, Monster, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, Looney Tunes: Back in Action, Finding Nemo, Love Actually, Elf, The Triplets of Belleville, Cold Mountain, The Room, School of Rock, Once Upon a Time in Mexico
• 2004 – Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Million Dollar Baby, The Incredibles, The Passion of the Christ, Sideways, Hotel Rwanda, Downfall, Friday Night Lights, Spider-Man 2, Saw, the Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, Mean Girls, Napoleon Dynamite, The Polar Express; The anti-piracy campaign "Piracy. It's a crime", which features the first line You Wouldn't Steal a Car, is first advertised.
• 2005 – Caché, The New World, Brokeback Mountain, The Dark Knight trilogy, The Death of Mr. Lazarescu, A History of Violence, Pride & Prejudice, Walk the Line, March of the Penguins, Munich, Capote, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Good Night, and Good Luck
• 2006 – Pan's Labyrinth, Children of Men, The Departed, Dreamgirls, The Lives of Others, The Prestige, Happy Feet, The Queen, Borat, Little Miss Sunshine, The Pursuit of Happyness, An Inconvenient Truth, The Last King of Scotland, Babel, United 93; first Blu-rays released
• 2007 – 300, Spider-Man 3, Transformers, There Will Be Blood, No Country for Old Men, The Simpsons Movie, I Am Legend, Ratatouille, Into the Wild, Juno, Atonement, Superbad, Persepolis, Once, La Vie En Rose
• 2008 – the Marvel Cinematic Universe, WALL-E, Slumdog Millionaire, Mamma Mia!, Gran Torino, The Wrestler, Milk, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: A VeggieTales Movie, Cloverfield, Ip Man, Waltz with Bashir, In Bruges, Man on Wire, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
• 2009 – Avatar, Inglorious Basterds, Up, A Serious Man, District 9, The Hurt Locker, The Hangover, Coraline, Mary and Max, Precious, An Education, In the Loop

2010–2019

• 2010 – The King's Speech, Toy Story 3, Inception, Black Swan, The Social Network, How to Train Your Dragon, Despicable Me, Winter's Bone, Tangled, 127 Hours, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
• 2011 – The Artist, Drive, The Intouchables, Hugo, The Muppets, A Separation, The Tree of Life, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Bridesmaids, Moneyball, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Help, The Cabin in the Woods
• 2012 – Life of Pi, Argo, Lincoln, Django Unchained, The Master, Les Misérables, Silver Linings Playbook, The Hunger Games, Ted, Pitch Perfect, Magic Mike, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Zero Dark Thirty
• 2013 – The Wolf of Wall Street, Gravity, Frozen, 12 Years a Slave, American Hustle, Dallas Buyers Club, Inside Llewyn Davis, Her, The Conjuring, Pacific Rim, Blue is the Warmest Colour
• 2014 – Interstellar, Boyhood, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Birdman, Whiplash, Kingsman: The Secret Service, Muppets Most Wanted, The Babadook, Paddington, The Lego Movie, John Wick, The Theory of Everything
• 2015 – Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Minions, Mad Max: Fury Road, The Revenant, Inside Out, The Martian, Spotlight, Amy, San Andreas, Ex Machina
• 2016 – La La Land, Deadpool, Zootopia, Your Name, Moana, Manchester by the Sea, Moonlight, Train To Busan, Don't Breathe
• 2017 – Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Beauty and the Beast, The Shape of Water, Wonder Woman, Spider-Man: Homecoming, Get Out, It, Dunkirk, Logan, The Disaster Artist, Baby Driver, Paddington 2, Blade Runner 2049, The Silent Child, In a Heartbeat, Okja, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Call Me by Your Name, Darkest Hour, The Greatest Showman; the Harvey Weinstein scandal began
• 2018 – Bohemian Rhapsody, Spider-Man: The Spider-Verse trilogy, A Star Is Born, The Favourite, A Quiet Place, Hereditary, Free Solo
• 2019 – Joker, Toy Story 4, 1917, Parasite, Rocketman, The Banana Splits Movie, Little Women, The Irishman, Marriage Story, Uncut Gems, Knives Out, Spider-Man: Far From Home

2020–present

• 2020 — Nomadland, Sonic the Hedgehog, Minari, The Eight Hundred, Hamilton, Mank, The Invisible Man, Another Round, Promising Young Woman, Wolfwalkers, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, The Half of It; Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a number of films shut down production, or are either removed from their originally scheduled releases and moved to new release dates or digital releases.
• 2021 — Spider-Man: No Way Home, Dune, The Power of the Dog, Encanto, Judas and the Black Messiah, Belfast, Licorice Pizza, Don't Look Up, Flee, CODA, The White Tiger, Tick, Tick... Boom!, The Lost Daughter; American movie theatre chain AMC Theatres launches its movie theatre commercial starring actress Nicole Kidman
• 2022 – Everything Everywhere All at Once, Top Gun: Maverick, Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio, RRR, Elvis, Aftersun, X, Tár, The Banshees of Inisherin, All Quiet on the Western Front, Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, Triangle of Sadness
• 2023 – Barbenheimer (consisting of the films Barbie and Oppenheimer), Wonka, Poor Things, The Zone of Interest, M3GAN, The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Maestro, The Boy and the Heron, May December, Robot Dreams, Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret.; In Hollywood, the Writers Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA separately began a series of strikes by the actors and writers for six months, affecting the film and television industries
• 2024 – Inside Out 2, Wicked, The Substance, Conclave, Civil War, Dune: Part Two, The Wild Robot, Flow, Sing Sing, Better Man, Challengers, A Real Pain, Anora, The Brutalist
• 2025 – A Minecraft Movie, Wolf Man, Dog Man, Captain America: Brave New World, Snow White, The Alto Knights, How to Train Your Dragon, Thunderbolts*, Elio, Lilo & Stitch, Jurassic World Rebirth, Avatar: Fire and Ash, Back in Action, Now You See Me 3, The Fantastic Four: First Steps, It Was Just an Accident, Superman, Resurrection, Predator: Badlands, The Gorge, The Monkey, Gabby's Dollhouse: The Movie, Heart Eyes, Five Nights at Freddy's 2, Dark Nuns, Zootopia 2, One Battle After Another
• 2026 – Mutiny, Scream 7, Toy Story 5, The Mandalorian and Grogu, The Bride!, Project Hail Mary, Wuthering Heights, Send Help, Masters of the Universe, Supergirl, Flowervale Street, Goat, Mercy, SOULM8TE, Three Bags Full: A Sheep Detective Movie, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, The Odyssey, Aang: The Last Airbender, Avengers: Doomsday, Moana

See also

• List of cinematic firsts
• List of years in animation

References

Sources

• The Silent Cinema Reader edited by Lee Grieveson and Peter Kramer
• Movies of the 30s, edited by Jürgen Müller, Taschen
• The Magic of Méliès, documentary by Jacques Mény, special collector's edition DVD, Spain